


Owed A Hundred Times Over

by tincturedwords



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Concerned Jaskier | Dandelion, Gen, Geralt Has More Friends Than I Think He Realises, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Lowkey Mystery, Medical Procedures, Near Death Experiences, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Serious Injuries, Whump, Witcher Potions (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24673426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tincturedwords/pseuds/tincturedwords
Summary: Visits in the dead of night never herald good news nor spell good fortune. No matter the who or the what or the why, it’s always a bad sign to have someone unexpectedly at your door after the sun has set.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Priscilla, Zoltan Chivay & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Zoltan Chivay & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 13
Kudos: 41





	Owed A Hundred Times Over

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** ¡Spoilers! Language , Blood , Descriptions of Injury , Description of Wounds , Canon Typical Violence , Mild Gore , Descriptions of Sickness , Prejudice Against Witchers , Mentions of Death / Dying , etc.  
>  **Timeline:** Set prior to the end of _The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt_ ; post _A Dangerous Game_ secondary quest.  
>  **Pairings:** Gen. None.  
>  **Chapter Summary:** Gravely injured and alone, a cloaked figure stumbles through the gates of Novigrad in search of shelter at a most peculiar establishment.  
>  **A/N:** Predominantly game based this one is , although there are a few allusions to scenes in the Netflix series because I treat _Witcher 3_ as if it’s future events for the Netflix series for the most part , but I’m putting it separate to my _No Notion of Halves_ series.  
> No beta thus all mistakes are mine.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own any rights to _The Witcher_. Neither am I associated with Andrzej Sapkowski , Netflix , the publication companies of the books , nor any of the actors who portray these characters. I make no money off any of my stories , this is purely for entertainment purposes.

> " It’s good people who make good places. " - **Anna Sewell , _Black Beauty_**

Relentless was the rain, falling in incessant sheets of engorged drops that pelted through the thickest of fabrics. Soaking through the layers upon layers on his frame it had, past his armour and down to his underclothes. Within minutes of the rainfall’s beginning, he was drenched. Riverlets ran and dripped down his sopping clothing, the leather, wool and cotton unable to suffuse any more liquid. It slicked the pallid skin of his face and doused his long, matted hair, despite the deep hood of his cloak being drawn up.

Little was there he could do to escape the downpour, for it was far too late into the night to procure a room at a willing inn and there was no one about the streets at the time. Not that he expected anyone to be willing to house him until the rain stopped, let alone for the entirety of the night. Difficult was it enough to hope for basic common decency when interacting with the general populace throughout the world, but this close to Novigrad, he expected none from those he wasn’t acutely and long timed acquainted with. Thus he didn’t stop. 

Not when he caught the glimpse of a woman who’d spied him as she went to close her shutters, nor when a pair of brothers with their father came up from the swelling riverbank from securing their boat and passed him on the road. The long stares, each had held a trepidation and fear beneath the initial surprise that’d widened their eyes. Ever wary, if not fearful or disgusted, at the sight of Witchers, even when another emotion is forefront or when said Witcher is plainly hindered by injury. Quickly had each pair of eyes skirted away from him, whether he caught their gaze with his own or not. Ashamed of their choice not to offer aid, but not so that it pricked their conscience enough to change. They all hurried on with their tasks. 

Although, to give them some credit to their behaviour he had to. For he supposed he looked a frightfully more inhuman than usual. Unable to see it for himself, but he could feel the effects of too many potions flowing through his blood. No doubt his skin was pale beyond measure, discoloured with dark veins and bruise-like marks to compliment his blackened eyes. The hunched posture and lumbering gait he’d taken on to cover a heavy limp along with easing the strain of standing fully upright would place on his ribs and stomach, helped his case even less. He was certain of it. 

Thus it was with resolute determination that he followed memory of mind and muscle, both weakened due to toxicity and exhaustion, but he was unfailing in guiding his battered body towards the one place he knew safety to be. A place of warmth and comfort that he rarely acknowledged, but knew would be there. He simply had to make it there. 

Coming to a stumbling halt when his booted feet met cobblestone after walking on dirt or grass for so long, noting the difference in the back of his mind as important and remembering to veer left after a handful of paces forward. He continued his trudge forwards after a moment to stare down at the altercation in the path, unsteady and dragging were his footfalls, but he wouldn’t stop for longer. A instinctual hitch deep within his gut told him if he were to do so, it would spell danger beyond what he could overcome for himself. 

So to the left he directed his step, near blindly now following an inner drive that compelled him onwards. The desire for warmth and rest pushed back to secondary needs, mere wants at this point so desperate was his need for a safe place to simply collapse. One where he wouldn’t be robbed of his few possessions, or further injured by vindictful passerby, or hissed at and spat on whilst he fell to weakness, but where his body would be properly taken care of, his belongings painstakingly sorted through and gifted away to those he’d cherished most, and where his weakness in those final moments wouldn’t be imprinted into memory, but of the life he had lived. 

Those notions, though blurred by pain and fatigue, helped spur him forwards. Many years ago he would have scoffed at being so sentimental, for wishing to have a better fate for himself after he passed than to die alongside some foul monster he’d sought to extinguish. But those thoughts held firmly despite their eroded edges and foggy centres, the innate urgency to gain that peace by reaching sanctuary fuelled his steps. 

As if destiny or the gods or plain bad luck wished to deepen his physical hurts, his legs crumbled underneath him at the slight downwards slope. Hard did he hit the ground, despite the mud that was already ankle deep from the heavy rain. His momentum carried him down the incline and he only stopped once he reached the bottom. 

Drawing a ragged breath, it hitched and crackled in his chest, he summoned what remaining strength lay within himself to gather his feet beneath him once more. Muscles quivering and bones aching from the jarring impact, he knew if he lay there any longer he would not rise again. Blood now trickled down from his nose and split lip to mingle with the rainwater that still ran down his face. It diluted the shaded carmine hue to a watery rust colour, the process repeated over and over as new droplets fell from his nose or beaded up from his lip. 

The new lacerations served to further his ghoulish appearance, but he was uncaring of it. Nor did he precisely feel it. Focused was he on hefting himself up, his trouse clad legs and boots were caked in the soft mud that’d been churned by the heavy rainfall and his unimpeded tumble down the short slope. HIs hands and forearms fared little better. The saturated ground sucking at his limbs when he trudged them free, desiring to keep him where he’d fallen as if it too held sentience enough to be disgruntled over the presence of a Witcher. 

Complex reasonings had fled with the fall, unable to conjure anything thought beyond ‘One more step. Get to safety. One more step.’ Repeated over and over, it became a mantra of sorts. One he hadn’t realised he was occasionally saying under his breath, laboured though it was, he spent a bit of it to speak those words each time his knees wavered and his head dipped or his frame swayed. 

It wasn’t long before his breath was spent, only able to draw in enough to curb the desperate ache in his lungs that came with lack of air. Still it remained sated for too short a time, requiring to inhale again and again. It felt as if it exhausted him more than it was worth, yet that instinctual pang spurred breath after breath from his lips. Despite coughs soon accompanying the action and a metallic wetness that was too warm to be rain sprung forth across his tongue a short time after the sporadic coughs had begun. 

Swiping a shaking hand across his mouth, a reflexive action that ended up futile given his already soaked state. Although it had replaced the warm dribble of something wet and vaguely crimson from what he gleaned at the sparse glance at his gloved hand before it fell back at his side, leaving the beard stubbled skin stained faintly pink until the continued rainfall too washed it away. Only to be replaced as his brush across his mouth reopened the healing split to his lip, reawakening the wound to spill streaks of blood once more down his short beard. It too was continually washed away by the rainfall. 

He trembled in exhaustion as his breath left his lungs in shallow pants, slipping pasted his chapped and parted lips in strained whooshes. Blood still seeped from the wound at his side, leaving the skin beneath his armour sticky and staining the fabric of his tunic a dark sickly shade of rust. Too long had it freely bled, even with tightly placed bandages and accelerated healing. Something was badly wrong. He knew it, but mind a haze from blood loss and elevated toxicity from the potions he’d downed in effort to remain standing, to keep fighting, to make it this far meant there was little reasoning left for his thoughts to follow, except to get to safety. 

Struggling to climb the merge two steps that’d bring him up onto the stone patio, stumbling on the steps lip and listing to the left as he went. He only remained upright by sheer will and the wooden railing that surrounded the outdoor area in places. 

Vaguely he noted the courtyard was empty. Not a single person about despite unconsciously realising this was an uncommon occurrence here. Faint recollection of gathered groups of vibrant colours, loud voices and music. However the oddness of it was fleeting, a twinge from his irritated wounds and overtaxed muscles swiftly reinforced his need to keep moving. 

Breath wheezed against the added strain from catching himself and the abrupt pull on his wounds, he forced himself upright. Keeping ahold of the post until the dizziness that threatened to topple his very self abated somewhat and allowed him to continue forward. Another ragged breath in, drawn painfully in, it scraped down his throat and seemed to stretch his chest uncomfortably tight, but it served its purpose in easing the blurriness to his vision. Although the dark edges continued to creep ever closer. He was running out of time, he knew. 

Releasing his hold, he took a step. Noticeably limping, unable to curve the severity of his stagger any longer, he crossed the stone yard towards the entrance. His attempts at knocking were feeble compared to the thump of his body against the sturdy wooden door, no longer able to keep himself upright any longer without an assist. He held no breath to call out, even a soundless rasp stole what effort he could put forth. Near gasping now as fatigued clawed at every ounce and fibre of his being, the dizziness returning with a vengeance and brought a lightheadedness that strove to drive him to the ground.

Thus there was naught he could do to stop himself from falling forward when the door swung open inwards.Quavering knees buckled without any support of the door, the rest of him following in short order to meet the wooden floor. The darkness that’d been encroaching upon his vision for the last hour finally won out, encompassing the entire field and drawing him down into unconsciousness.

_**TBC.** _

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** I wrote this several weeks ago as a writing exercise in descriptions that slowly turned into another multi - chapter wip because I have no impulse control when it comes to things like this so upon rereading it I’ve decided to post it. It’s relatively short this chapter , but the others are looking to be longer. Although, this is only planned in my outline to be three chapters long so far , although the last depending on word count may turn into a fourth chapter.
> 
> For those worried , no character death happens in this fic. Just lots of hurt & later comfort with a dose of angst. But as usual with my writing, no one dies rest assured.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always welcome or just any comments that come to mind about something you liked / didn’t like or reactions to any given part. Whatever it may be , feel free to say something about it. I would love to know & hear from you , but never feel obligated to comment / review if you aren’t up for it.


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